Things ain't going well for Nokia. Their quarterly results are - again - a disaster, and Lumia sales have dropped 28% (50% if you look at just the US). Windows Phone 8 is really going to be a make-it-or-break-it kind of thing. If it doesn't go well, the company might consider going back to focussing on rubber boots.

Why should Microsoft buy Nokia? They seem perfectly capable and surprisingly eager to run their own industrial design shop and deal directly with the contract manufacturers like Apple does.

Microsoft doesn't want the Lumia brand to subsume the Windows brand. If they can't much buy-in from the other handset vendors, then they'll just go vertical instead.

It's time for Nokia to make their next desperate platform misstep. For example, Yahoo poached Google's SVP of mobile location services and made her their new CEO, so they might be looking for a handset partner that isn't joined at the hip to Android. If there's anyone desperate enough to bet on Yahoo making a dramatic recovery, it's Nokia.